Is The ‘UnREAL’ Race Car Driver Based On Arie From ‘The Bachelor’? The Two Share An Occupation

The TV show UnREAL returns Monday night for its third season, and one of the new contestants might seem a little familiar. So, let's just cut to the chase to find out if the race car driver from UnREAL based on Arie Luyendyk Jr.. The short answer is probably not, simply based on timing; the UnREAL Season 3 cast was announced before Arie was announced as the Bachelor. But the more realistic answer is that, with over 40 seasons of Bachelor-related content to draw from, it's impossible to know what inspiration derived from where.

That same EW post also reports that Billy is someone who "lives by his traditional, conservative values," which aren't traits that the Season 22 Bachelor is particularly known for. In fact, his ex-girlfriends allege that he has a history of dating multiple women at once. Arie also shared with Tia that he doesn't consider himself to be a particularly religious person. And while that's entirely his business, those are hardly the kind of "traditional, conservative values" that fans could trace over to the fictional Billy.

Furthermore, the timing just doesn't check out for Billy to be an Arie-cat. (It's like a copy cat, but you're copying Arie. It'll catch on.) The EW post introducing the cast was published in late January 2017, when Nick Viall's season of The Bachelor was airing. At that point, Arie wasn't even on anyone's radar yet, as his last appearance on the show had been Season 8 of The Bachelorette, with Emily Maynard. He came in as the runner-up, of course, so he was certainly a familiar face within the franchise. But, outside of the franchise, not so much

In short, the show is pulling from pretty recent milestones in Bachelor history, and before Arie was selected to helm the franchise in September 2017, there would be no reason to dig five years in the past to dig him up and parody him. What's more likely is that UnREAL simply borrowed an occupation from one contestant, maybe injected some personality from another source, and mixed it all together to create their very own unique character.

So, don't expect to see Billy spouting phrases like "I love that," or getting a reputation as a kissing bandit. We've already seen that season, and, to be honest, it's not quite exciting enough to parody.